The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child issued a stinging report Wednesday that first and foremost called on the Roman Catholic Church to remove all child abusers from its ranks and to open its archives to the committee for independent review of crimes and concealment.

The report went beyond that though to criticize the Church for its stance on abortion, homosexuality and contraception among other things.

The Vatican responded that certain elements of the report were "an attempt to interfere with Catholic Church teaching on the dignity of human person and in the exercise of religious freedom. "

The Catholic Association issued a statement calling the report "a stunning and misguided attackon the Vatican. The responsible committee appears to have overlooked the last decade, in which the Church has taken serious measures to protect children."

In simple terms, should the committee have limited its comment to the issue of child sexual abuse or was it right to raise broader questions about the church's teachings on social issues? In a broader sense, what is illuminated by this conflict between a secular institution and a religious one? How should a person of faith respond when someone or something questions their sacred teachings?

WILLIAM LAWRENCE, Dean and Professor of American Church History, Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University The assurance in the Constitution that no laws can "prohibit the free exercise" of religion should not be confused with a religious organization's immunity from criticism. And when the criticism comes from an international body with no capacity to institute penalties or inflict punishment on the religious body, the critique should not be confused with a threat. But it still deserves to be taken seriously.

In this situation, a Committee of the United Nations leveled complaints regarding several matters in the Roman Catholic Church. These matters range from the church's response to cases in which children were sexually abused by priests, to church policies on women's health care, to church positions on sexual orientation.

Can a secular, intergovernmental organization criticize a religious, non-governmental organization? Of course it can! Is there a possibility that the critique could stretch beyond the boundaries of challenging policies and intrude into territories that involve exclusively religious matters? Of course there is! Plenty of people, including some Roman Catholics and many other Christians, have found Catholic discipline to be deficient on matters of sexual health, sexual equality, and sexual orientation.

Church authorities have the right to assert their own doctrines. People are free to affirm the teachings of the church or to walk away from them.

But the point at which a religious body cannot simply dismiss criticisms as interference is the point at which the victims are the voiceless who have to rely on advocates to help their cries be heard. There have been times when religious bodies chose to do little or nothing about a moral crisis within their walls. Those situations were acknowledged and addressed only when individuals and institutions outside of these religious bodies persisted in producing evidence and pleading for justice. Only when the critiques continued unabated did the religious organizations see the right and right the wrongs.

The current question is not whether the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child is correct in every particular. The real question is whether a church can remain aloof from its critics. Clearly it cannot. That does not mean the church is guilty as charged. But it does mean that the church would be wise to respond to the charges.

JIM DENISON, President, Denison Forum on Truth and CultureIs the U.N. report an appropriate call for Catholics to align their policies on abortion, homosexuality and contraception with contemporary thinking? Or is it a "shocking display of ignorance and high-handedness," as one Catholic defender described it?

Where you get on this train is likely where you'll get off.

If you believe that truth is relative and ethics are subjective, you probably agree with American philosopher Richard Rorty that truth is what works for the community. You will therefore want the Catholic Church to adjust its convictions to the conventional wisdom of the day.

However, to deny absolute truth is to make an absolute truth claim. If you believe that ethics should be based on objective truth, you may well be alarmed by the U.N.'s attack on long-held Catholic policies. And you may wonder where such aggression is going. If the Church refuses to bow to the committee, will it face economic or political sanctions in the future? Could similar action be taken against any faith group?

Scripture guides the Christian response: "In your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense against anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame" (1 Peter 3:15-16).

Martin Luther noted, "They gave our Master a crown of thorns. Why do we hope for a crown of roses?"

So first - while UN Human Rights organizations too often unjustifiably claim more high ground than their constituent members really are entitled to For example, on the Human Rights Council, you have Kazakhstan, Pakistan, and United Arab Emirates overseeing human rights violations of other nations. It's hard to overstate the sheer awfulness of Vatican culpability in the issue at hand. And the past decade of careful, rear-guard-action, incremental reform that still protects criminal priests from proper criminal prosecution is not only a series of half-way, half-measures to take "serious steps to protect children," it in itself is pretty inexcusable. So I leave the Vatican to make its own defense.

Yet while all the topics in that particular sandbag (abortion, contraception, even the legal protection of homosexual teens) are related in some way to children and families, the committee overstepped its boundaries. Wrong time, wrong place. The shotgun approach, in fact, disperses the impact on the child abuse issue, and gives the Church a kind of cover to lump it all together as sheer "anti-Catholicism." The Committee threw in distracters that actually serve to confuse and cloud the central problem that is supposed to be addressed here.

Beyond the homiletic occasion: Where to draw the line on the critique of religious doctrines and customs that may have detrimental physical and social consequences? It' a tough line to draw. It's not just a libertarian issue. If the Catholic hierarchy were satisfied to enforce their family purity/morality issues on their own flock, I would feel like I have no dog in this fight. But the church has historically, in country after country, sought to turn its policy into state policy. This has been detrimental to fighting AIDS, reducing maternal and infant mortality, and economic development, not just among Catholics, but in whole nations, regardless of the larger religious make up of these nations. I'm Church-State separator, a "two kingdoms" doctrinalist, a King Henry-over-Thomas Becket guy.

DARRELL BOCK, Executive Director of Cultural Engagement, Howard G. Hendricks Center for Christian Leadership and Cultural Engagement, Senior Research Professor of New Testament Studies Dallas Theological SeminaryReligious organizations should assess such challenges for their validity, but secular organizations should be more careful to appreciate why religious groups may hold the views they do. The effort to control speech and views among some secular groups shows the same insensitivity they often said religious views exercised against them in the past. Sexual abuse needs to be firmly dealt with, but these other areas involve moral choices and matters of conscience that are in a different category. That deserves to be recognized and treated with more circumspection. The differing standards for what is respectful of life and flourishing leads to these differences. So engage and reflect, but recognize that the competing values assessment leads to distinct conclusions about what is moral.

PHILIP JENKINS, Distinguished Professor of History, Institute for Studies of Religion, Baylor UniversityAt so many levels, the report in question was a sick joke.

There is no evidence that Roman Catholic clergy are any more or less likely to abuse minors than any other group working with children, whether clergy of any other denomination, or secular professionals such as schoolteachers. If such evidence exists, where is it? Point me to ANY comparative studies. I have looked long and hard, and find none.

The fact we hear so much about the Catholic aspect of the issue results from the church's detailed and extensive record-keeping, and its attractiveness for litigation. The vast majority of cases that surface in the Catholic context - certainly in North America - date from the 1960s through the 1980s, not since. The practices that the committee complains of - shifting culprits and not reporting them to police - were absolutely standard behavior for all agencies back in that era. Secular schools did exactly the same thing. It reflected the advice offered by the best-esteemed professionals dealing with abuse issues in psychology and therapy.

It would be fascinating to see a UN body of this kind attack the religious beliefs and practices of any other faith or denomination, such as Islam or Hinduism. Even to mention the possibility is to reveal its impossibility. This report is straightforward religious bigotry.

Finally, it is close to hilarious that such a report should come from a UN agency, given the pervasive corruption that has so often been exposed at all levels of that organization and its bureaucracy.

LARRY BETHUNE, Senior Minister, University Baptist Church, AustinThe U.N. complaint about the Vatican response to child abuse in the church was weakened by the inclusion of other culture war issues. The report would have been stronger by sticking with the issue of child abuse in the church, affirming steps that have been taken, but pushing for more. The best direction to broaden the report would have been to include all institutions - religious and secular - in its demands to be rigorously strict in preventing child abuse, punishing offenders, and protecting children.

On the other hand, the New Testament (which was written in a time when Christians had no legal protection of religious liberty) urges believers always to be ready to defend their beliefs. Every applied belief - theistic or nontheistic - has positive and negative consequences with regard to social relationships and cultural impact. It belongs to believers to respond to secular critique with explanation, clarification, and, where necessary, amelioration of effects. For instance, it is insufficient for the church to oppose abortion without also creating the means by which unplanned pregnancies may be prevented or supported.

It is also insufficient simply to resist critique by asserting our religious liberty to believe as we wish. Claiming persecution or hiding behind religious liberty begs the question. The issue is how these beliefs impact secular society and thus secular society has a right to raise questions and expect a dialogue.

Religious liberty cuts both ways. Secular society and people of different religious belief also have a right to practice their beliefs with regard to these issues and have a voice in setting legal and social norms. Therefore, the UN report goes too far, but the Vatican response not far enough.

Officials from the Catholic Church frequently release comments criticizing social behavior that is well beyond religious bounds. Dish it out but can't take it?

The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child did not take issue with the Trinity, or Nicean Creed, or belief in virgin births. It examined only when church policy impacts outside world in a negative way.

The charge by the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child is that a pattern of actions within the Catholic Church demeans and even threatens children. With Catholicism on the rise in Africa, it's especially important not to repeat the past on that vast continent.

As any court would, they find relevant other instances that amplify such a pattern. When homosexuals are considered lesser persons deserving of fewer human rights than others, when women are forbidden to control their own fertility but men's impotence drugs are fully funded by insurance, there is a deep, even institutionalized, pattern of diminishment of some humans over others that is worthy of wide discussion.

CYNTHIA RIGBY, W.C. Brown Professor of Theology, Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary My initial, gut reaction on this was to say that the UN should have stuck with addressing child abuse and should have avoided commenting on social issues such as abortion, contraception, homosexuality, and gender roles. After all, it is important that we protect the right of religious institutions to say, teach, uphold, and defend what they believe.

Until I got to thinking, which led me to delve a little deeper. I starting thinking through how it is that we can cut to the core of this heinous human rights violation that went mainly unchecked for decades, and remains yet to be resolved. In order to protect our children from the "worst" of abuses, don't we have to think more organically about how our "positions" (civil, religious, and otherwise) affect them, the most vulnerable members of our global community? How do the "positions" we hold fail to keep our children safe?

I read through the UN report and found that it actually does not criticize directly the Vatican's position on abortion, contraception, homosexuality, and gender roles. What it does do is insist the church promote such positions in ways that do not fund the abuse of children in any way. Any such abuses, the document rightly insists, are criminal acts that must be condemned by the global society. The report further points out that the Vatican signed, alongside 139 other sovereign entities, the UN's "Convention on the Rights of the Child" in 1989 (linked at www.ohchr.org/en/professionalinterest/pages/crc.aspx), therefore covenanting to take these matters seriously and to be guided by way of conversation with other signing members of the global community.

As I study this matter I am increasingly impressed by how careful the UN was about NOT criticizing religious convictions as such, but insisting that these religious convictions not be invoked as a justification for overlooking ANY form of child abuse, discrimination, or neglect.

"The Committee urges the Holy See to review its position on abortion which places obvious risks on the life and health of pregnant girls . . ." [Note that the aim here is not to criticize the church's position on abortion per se, but to highlight the real implications of this position for pregnant children, particularly those who have been raped and/or whose lives are endangered by pregnancy.]

"The Committee is seriously concerned about the negative consequences of the Holy See's position and practices of denying adolescents' access to contraception, as well as to sexual and reproductive health and information." [Note that the concern here is not directly to criticize the church's position on contraception, but to advocate for the sexual and reproductive health of children.]

"The Committee also urges the Holy See to make full use of its moral authority to condemn all forms of harassment, discrimination or violence against children based on their sexual orientation or the sexual orientation of their parents and to support efforts at international level for the decriminalisation of homosexuality." [Note that the concern here is not to counter the church's position that homosexuality is a sin, but to condemn criminal violence directed against children who are homosexual in orientation and/or children of homosexual parents.]

"The Committee also urges the Holy See to take active measures to remove from Catholic schools textbooks all gender stereotyping which may limit the development of the talents and abilities of boys and girls and undermine their educational and life opportunities." [Note that the concern here is not to condemn the church's teaching that the roles of men and women differ, but to call the church to promote the flourishing of all children, regardless of their sex.]

In my view, the Holy See has too frequently sat back into its "convictions" and ignored the real and concrete ways its positions on abortion, contraception, homosexuality, and gender roles have funded the widespread abuse of children. The UN is calling the church not necessarily to change their positions, but to sit up, take responsibility, and address these criminal and moral abuses associated with these positions. I, along with so many others in this world, have great hope that the church is moving in the right direction in these matters under the leadership of Pope Francis.

I would go on to suggest, however, that if the church cannot actively and directly address these abuses of children without changing its "positions" on said social issues, its positions on these issues must be changed.

Jesus took little stock in religious convictions as such, pointing out that the purpose of God's laws - the purpose of the faith stands we take - is never for their own sake. They are for the purpose of promoting the "abundant life" Jesus wills and promises. Responding to those who accused him of breaking his convictions about the Sabbath to feed and to heal, Jesus stated the truth very directly: "Humanity is made for the Sabbath, not Sabbath for humanity."

If the lives of our children are being harmed by our religious convictions, these convictions are not of God; they have become idols of our own making.

MIKE GHOUSE, President, Foundation for Pluralism and speaker on interfaith matters, Dallas The call from the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child on the Roman Catholic Church to remove all child abusers from its ranks and to open its archives to the committee for independent review of crimes and concealment is within its charter.

The United Nations' declaration on religious intolerance in its Article 1 (3) states, "Freedom to manifest one's religion or beliefs may be subject only to such limitations as are prescribed by law and are necessary to protect public safety, order, health or morals or the fundamental rights and freedoms of others."

The United Nations or its committees do not have the authority to demand accountability or execute any of their decisions. However, most nations are signatories to its charter on religious freedom and human rights.

This particular issue has opened up a can of worms, and may lead us into redefining the boundaries between religion and civil society beyond a nation's border. The clash between the religious rights and civil rights is nothing new in the United States. We have come a long way in splitting hair and have been successful in dissecting civil rights out of religious rights. We are struggling with same sex marriage, gender equality, contraceptives, abortion and other issues. The First Amendment may eventually be reduced to just preventing establishment of, or hindrance in the free exercise of religion, but may give room to wean civil and criminal issues into the civil jurisdiction like the death penalty.

However, other nations like Saudi Arabia (beheading), Pakistan (blasphemy laws), Iran (stoning adulterer to death), India (anti-conversion laws), Israel (Orthodoxy-settlements), Uganda (death for homosexuality) may vigorously defend their right to keep it under a religious wrap. Of course we still have the death penalty in practice and needs to be done with.

Thanks to Pope Francis, in less than a year, he has been able to see all the infractions within the Catholic Church and taken the initiatives to fix them, and it will take a few more years or longer to stabilize. However, knowing the Pope for the last eleven months, I believe he is on the side of the victims, and indeed he is a mercy to mankind and will do the right thing.

Society at large has a responsibility to protect the unprotected and punish the abuser. Religions do not have a system to petition with religious authorities to redress fallacious laws. As a Muslim, I have seeded that change in Fixing Sharia.

A few decades from now, will most of the religious laws transition into civil laws as societies become increasingly diverse?

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